I had made sure to finish watching my ‘Gamera’ box set
once again before watching this latest Gamera film,
‘Gamera the Brave’ to make sure I didn’t miss anything,
but it really wasn’t necessary. Though director Ryutu
Tazaki’s film was released seven years after Shusuke
Kaneko’s ‘Revenge of Iris’, a movie argued in the fan
circles as the best Kaiju monster movie ever, Tazaki’s
film really doesn’t exist in the same universe as those
three previous Gamera movies and instead returns to the
kid friendly Gamera we knew in the 1960’s and early
seventies. Though I was initially disappointed in this,
in watching the film it is a good thing in that the
director probably wished to make his own Gamera film and
not just an extension of the excellent Kaneko films, and
while ‘Gamera the Brave’ doesn’t carry the visceral
impact of the final Kaneko film, it is still a fine
Gamera movie in its own right.

This film opens in 1973. In the Gamera timeline this
would be two years after the release of arguably the
worst monster movie ever made in Gamera vs. Zigra.
Regardless, Gamera, looking much like we left him after
his battle with Iris, is doing his best against a team
of Gyaos birds who are quite honestly kicking his ass
while the helpless people of the neighboring island
town, including a little boy, helplessly look on. Just
when all seems lost and the Gyaos appear to have finally
bested their most feared enemy, Gamera plays his trump
card ending the Gyaos threat once and for all, but
making the greatest sacrifice in the process. That scene
was manna from monster movie heaven by the way.

Back in the present day that child has grown into
restaurant owner Kousuke Aizawa (Kanji Tsuda) who is
doing what he can to help his nine year old boy Toru
(Ryo Tomioka) get over the accidental death of the
child’s mother a year ago, as the youth seems to exist
in a state of constant depression. One day the boy sees
a bright light

across the island and there he finds an egg on top of a
glowing rock which soon hatches into just the cutest
little turtle you’ll ever want to see. Now the boy’s
father has told Toru that he can’t have pets due to the
fact that they live on top of their restaurant, health
violations I guess, so he hides his new pet turtle which
he has named Toto for sentimental reasons.

It’s not long before Toto starts doing some strange
stuff. Like flying for one, scaring the beejeebus out of
the pretty but sickly neighbor girl Mai (Koho) who knows
full well that turtles aren’t supposed to fly. Not only
does the little turtle seem to keep himself in harms
way, it’s also growing at a rather remarkable rate. Mai
tells the boy she thinks this turtle might be the
rebirth of Gamera, but Toru can’t see how his cute
little Toto could possibly grow into the fanged fire
breathing monster we all know and love.

Then comes Zedus. Zedus is a large, spiky, mean
spirited monster from the sea with a taste for human
flesh. Toto has grown large enough where he can do
battle with Zedus but not nearly large enough to do the
damage needed to silence the beast for good. Toru thinks
he has the key that will give Toto the strength to
defeat Zedus, but his fear is that he will lose his
friend forever and the boy has had just about as much
loss as he can take. But the fate of the people of
Japan, as per usual, is at stake and only through the
help of the children of Japan, who seem to know
something that no else does, will Toto become what he
needs to become to save them all. And that is he must
become Gamera.

Once you accept the fact this is not a continuation of
the Kaneko Gamera and come to grips with Gamera’s return
to his original roots, ‘Gamera the Brave’ is still a
very entertaining little movie. It works because of the
emotion that Tazaki is using to spearhead his version of
Gamera, which is genuine and heartfelt. Young Ryo
Tomioka gives a fine performance as the heart broken
little boy who has his spirits lifted by the worlds
cutest baby turtle, and its hard not to feel something
as the Japanese relay team of small children rushed to
get that damn rock to Toru to save Toto from getting his
business handed to him by Zedus, and gosh darnit, the
movies final scene almost brought a tear to my eye.
Think Johnny Sokko saying goodbye to his robot.

Gamera has a far less threatening Godzuki type look to
him after his rebirth in this installment, but the
monster design is still well done. Zedus looks almost
like a throwback to the monsters of yore appearing very
much like the classic dude in a rubber suit, and there
was far less reliance on CGI in this instance than in
the three previous films. To that fact there was less of
a reliance on monster battles overall as this was an
emotional family film, that is when Zedus wasn’t chowing
down on humans with his mouth dripping blood. It’s a lot
like a Lassie movie if Lassie had to somehow stop a
man-eating lizard from eating Tokyo by coughing up a
nuclear tinged fireball and forcing it down that
monsters throat, blowing it back to the hell from which
it came. Yep, it’s just like that.

Despite the drastic change in tone from the previous
Gamera films, this is still Gamera with the turtle
returning to his original kid friendly roots. Were
Tazaki to play this campy or not take it seriously it
could’ve been disastrous, but he gave the story the
respect it deserved and has placed his own stamp on the
series. We’ll no doubt miss the dark Gamera who would
accidentally stomp on a human or two to get his job
done, or nuke a city to kill one lousy Gaos bird, but if
there are more of these type of Gamera movies to follow,
and the story progresses as well as I think it will, I
believe Gamera fans have little to worry about.